Share this:

10 Responses to “Congratulations to the 2012 ENnie Award winners!”

I see that once again the ENnies show themselves as nothing more than a giant popularity contest. Once again the Publisher that can raise a giant legion of fans wins every award they’re up for. I always hope for more out of the gaming community. And am always disappointed.

I’m confused by Barry’s comment. I thought the Ennies were voted on by fans? If that’s so, then the games with the most fans are going to win. If I were voting, I’d vote for the games I liked best regardless of who published them. I’m not going to say, “Well, I don’t know anyone who played Barry’s company’s game, but I guess I’ll vote for it instead of for the game that we all played and enjoyed”, or “Well, I honestly thought Barry’s company’s game was boring, but I guess I’ll vote for it anyway because they’re a small publisher and I want to encourage them to make more boring games”.

@Barry – *someone* has to pick who is receiving an award. In this case, it is a fan-driven, open-to-vote award… not a an award given by a peer-group of game designers/publishers. Sorry you don’t feel that a fan-based award system is the kind of way you would like to see recognition given in the industry. If you were to put together a peer-group driven award, as I mentioned previously, then you would end up with someone QQing about how “fans weren’t involved”.

The Ennies are what they are… yes, it is, in part, a popularity contest, but the idea is that the popularity is driven by superior product design. You don’t have to agree with the results either… play what you like.

Congratulations to the winners and to our hobby- we are lucky to have passionate people working to make the best products they can.

I’m not high on a “peoples choice” type awards, with such a small voting public. I can see both sides but with just a few companies that dominate the hobby the winners are predictable. It is hard to find a good way to award games for a Eenie Gold or Silver but one solution I’ve kicked around is having a list of industry leaders, that throw their hat into the ring, to be a judge (Like maybe 5 judges get voted in.) Majority rules when picking for the categories. (Maybe a bio page could be posted on a Eenie website to give the public a good idea just who the judges are.)

Instead of a bronze award maybe have a judges pick, where each judge can select one category (With the exception of best company) that didn’t win an award and they thought deserved one and state why they thought so.

It is kind’s like government where you elect your representative. From there it is pretty much the same with companies submitting products for the judges. Makes the selection of judges transparent and takes away the popularity contest.